The careers of three professional CS:GO players are in question after each was caught using a cheat in the game.

Hovik "KQLY" Tovmassian, Gordon "Sf" Giry, and Simon "smn" Beck each received in-game bans through Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) earlier this week, but for the first two at least, things are more serious.

Tovmassian has the biggest profile of the three cheaters. He was immediately cut from his team (Titan), but it was disqualified from participating in the DreamHack Winter tournament anyway, which has a prize pool of US$250,000.

Giry was also cut from his team (Epsilon), but it too was disqualified from the tournament.

“As you may have seen yesterday, I was banned by VAC and unfortunately it was justified,” KQLY wrote on Facebook (via Google translate).

“I wanted to say that I am really sorry for all the people who supported me, I am aware that with my bullshit, my career is now over and my team in a very bad position. They did not deserve it.”

According to Tovmassian, the person who gave him the cheat software said many pro players were using it.

The cheat allegedly connects through a player’s Steam Workshop. According to eSports commentator Duncan “Thooorin” Shields, it is very difficult to detect.

“If you’re already one of the best players in the world, it’ll make it so you just look like you’re having your best game,” he said on YouTube.

“It won’t even seem like you’re hacking and that was an impossible movement.”

DreamHack’s head of sSports Tomas Lyckedal told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet special measures would be in place to catch any others attempting to cheat at the tournament.

"I don’t think a pro player has been banned like this since 2001,” he added.

“Of course people have been caught cheating but it’s always been semi-professionals, never established players.

“And it’s a shame it has to happen so close before the tournament. I really hope that this doesn’t happen to more teams, but this has to be a clean sport so if it happens then so be it.”